Google's Megan Smith recruited to a top federal post

The White House on Thursday dug deeper into Silicon Valley's trove of technology experts by naming Google executive Megan Smith to become the government's chief technology officer and former Twitter lawyer Alexander Macgillivray as deputy chief technology officer.

Smith, who will guide the Obama administration's information technology initiatives, had been a vice president with Google X, a division involved with some of the Mountain View company's most innovative projects, including its proposed drone delivery service.

For nine years before that, Smith had been vice president of new business development at Google, managing early-stage partnerships and technology licensing, and led the company's acquisition of Google Earth, Google Maps and Picasa. Earlier, she was CEO of PlanetOut -- an online site for the gay-lesbian-bisexual-transgender community -- helped design smartphone technologies at General Magic, and worked on multimedia products at Apple Japan in Tokyo. She holds bachelor's and master's degrees in mechanical engineering from MIT.

She replaces Todd Park, who among other things co-founded Castlight -- an Internet health care shopping service based in San Francisco --- and who is returning to Silicon Valley at President Barack Obama's request to be a White House technology adviser and to recruit more tech talent for the government.

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In a tweet, Smith said, "honored to join @WhiteHouseOSTP," referring to the Office of Science and Technology Policy. She also thanked Park for his "incredible service," adding "let's go #InnovationNation!"

Google co-founder Sergey Brin, who directs the company's special projects, cheered the appointment.

"Megan has inspired so many people through her commitment to inclusion and innovation," he said in a company statement. "We'll miss her at Google X and are excited to see what the future holds for her in Washington."

Macgillivray, an expert in technology law and policy, had been general counsel and head of public policy at San Francisco-based Twitter from 2009—2013. He replaces Nicole Wong, Twitter's former legal director, who before that was Google's general counsel.

Other Silicon Valley veterans that have been snapped up by the White House include:

Mikey Dickerson, a Google official who helped keep the company's servers operating. He recently was named administrator of the U.S. Digital Services Team, whose job is to improve the government's websites.

Michelle Lee, a former deputy general counsel at Google, is now deputy under secretary of commerce for intellectual property and also deputy director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Santa Clara University law professor Colleen Chien, who last year was appointed the federal Office of Science and Technology Policy's senior adviser for intellectual property and innovation.